


Tell Me What It's Like to Conquer; Tell Me What It's Like to Burn

by theandrogynousdragon



Category: Chronicles of Narnia - All Media Types
Genre: Dark Magic, Dimension Travel, I wrote this instead of working on my wips lol, M/M, Mental Instability, Peter Pevensie-centric, The Problem of Susan, This Is Why We Can't Have Nice Things, Whump, but make it Worse, mentions of suicidal ideations, might add crossovers later I haven't decided
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-03-14
Updated: 2021-03-14
Packaged: 2021-03-22 03:20:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 489
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/30032229
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theandrogynousdragon/pseuds/theandrogynousdragon
Summary: There are many worlds, and very few of them end happily. Some of them don't really end at all.
Relationships: Edmund Pevensie & Lucy Pevensie & Peter Pevensie & Susan Pevensie, Peter Pevensie/Original Male Character(s)
Comments: 2
Kudos: 6





	Tell Me What It's Like to Conquer; Tell Me What It's Like to Burn

Peter, High King of Narnia, shut the Door

There is a world where Susan buries her family, screaming into a wardrobe to _give them back, please just give them back_ , a world where she is given no answer and turns away from Narnia almost out of spite, diving into mundane things with a sort of vengeance on her bold-painted lips. There is a world where the only one left of the Pevensies is Edmund, who attempts to follows his family every chance he gets until one finally, finally _works_. There is a world where it is Lucy standing at the fresh graves, who grieves and turns what had once been faith to consuming hatred and plots ways to kill a lion. There is a world where they all die in that crash, too, no one alive left to mourn them. 

Like a dream, or a dream of a dream 

But in this one, this world, it is Peter who watches six coffins be lowered into the ground, one after the other, side by side by side. The thing is this: the only reason Peter lives in this world is because he'd _missed the train_. “It's alright, Lu, I'll get the next one!” he'd shouted as the doors closed. His last words to his baby sister, and he didn't even know if she'd heard him. Never would, now.

Do not recite the Deep Magic

He was a High King, once, a lifetime ago. Magic seeped into his bones and never left. Magic is _jealous_ , that way. Those it marks, it _keeps_. It is not a thing given to letting go. 

Adam's flesh and Adam's bone 

Peter could tell that the wardrobe was Something Else, just like he could tell that the train station wasn't really There all the way. He walks out of the cemetery, and knows there are three Doorways behind his parents' old house. He has never bothered with them before because they don't go ~~home~~ to Narnia. One opens to a field of ice, and he avoids it on principle. One is a jungle, and he considers it, before deciding that he doesn't want to be yet another British man stumbling through a foreign jungle and inevitably mucking things up. The third is a yawning void the color of midnight, and he slips through it without a sound. 

To the clear northern skies 

He drifts between worlds, aimless, wondering what will happen if he never stops. (Ethan and Helen Pevensie are survived by their eldest son, Peter.) He learns how to raise the dead and call down fire from the sky, how to use a peculiar machine called a computer and how to fix cars. (UNIVERSITY STUDENT MISSING AFTER TRAIN CRASH KILLS WHOLE FAMILY!) One of the worlds he finds is already ended, and he spends a week or so wandering the empty cities and setting every goddamn train on fire. 

I name you Sir Peter Wolfsbane 


End file.
